RAMNAGAR (Uttarakhand): Wildlife authorities in a joint operation with the State Police arrested five poachers and seized tiger skin and bones from their possession at Ramnagar in Uttarakhand.
"One tiger skin, tiger bones, ...cat, trap, which was used for poaching and also the weapons by which the tiger was killed have been recovered," said P C Arya, Sub-Divisional Officer of Ramnagar, Uttarakhand.
"We're investigating five persons and we are also gathering information of the involvement of four to five more persons," said P K Patro, Divisional Forest Officer, Ramnagar, Uttarakhand.
The tiger is facing the threat of extinction with early results from a 2007 census suggesting there could be as few as 1,500 tigers left in India, compared to a century ago when there were around 40,000.
Tigers, leopards, rhinos, reptiles, birds and insects as well as rare species of trees and plants are also being smuggled into China, Formosa (Taiwan), Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
There were about 40,000 tigers in India a century ago.
A government report on tiger census, published this year, states that the tiger population has fallen to 1,411, down from 3,642 in 2002, largely due to dwindling habitat and poaching.
In 2006, a special panel set up by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh observed that thousands of poor villagers inside India's tiger reserves would have to be relocated to protect the endangered animals from poachers and smugglers.
